I'm in the trenches. Making games is amazing, but the business is brutal. Very hard to find a "geyser of money" and monopolize it for years let alone decades. Contrast with Google search or Microsoft Office, etc. The tech advances quickly, dating past work. One fad gives way to the next. There's a fixed amount of attention for an ever growing amount of content. etc. etc.
Meanwhile, the technical work is very sophisticated and game engineers can work elsewhere, so they justifiably want to be paid well or they will leave to adjacent industries. Plus life is expensive in America. Six figure salary ain't what it used to be. People overseas, including western Europe, will do comparable work for peanuts. Article basically gets it correct. Not sure the problem can be solved. Joe in Seattle wants $150,000. Jozef in Poland wants $50,000. Case closed.
Still, I'm grateful to get to make games with cool people every day. Carpe diem!
> How many state side engineers are the 45 Polish engineers replacing
Probably 45? It isn't like USA is dominating the video game space, unlike most other IT sectors, you find talented video game engineers in many places.
Meanwhile, the technical work is very sophisticated and game engineers can work elsewhere, so they justifiably want to be paid well or they will leave to adjacent industries. Plus life is expensive in America. Six figure salary ain't what it used to be. People overseas, including western Europe, will do comparable work for peanuts. Article basically gets it correct. Not sure the problem can be solved. Joe in Seattle wants $150,000. Jozef in Poland wants $50,000. Case closed.
Still, I'm grateful to get to make games with cool people every day. Carpe diem!